'I've got nothing but good things to say towards the fans who were really supportive, especially towards the end,' says netminder who took club to 2011 Stanley Cup Final

Roberto Luongo talks to reporters in Phoenix, Ariz., on Tuesday. The Vancouver Canucks traded their star goalie back to the Florida Panthers on Tuesday, nearly eight years after he arrived on Canada's West Coast from the Sunshine State.

Photograph by: Twitter @vancanucks
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PHOENIX — Nearly eight years after he arrived in Vancouver, goalie Roberto Luongo made a U-turn home Tuesday and the trade that sent him back to the Florida Panthers was nearly as unexpected as the one that brought him to the Canucks in 2006.

And as surely as former general manager Dave Nonis’s acquisition of Luongo was the greatest catalyst in the Canucks' rise to excellence in the National Hockey League, current GM Mike Gillis’s trade on Tuesday is proof the team is at the end of its cycle.

With the NHL trading deadline at noon Wednesday (Pacific time), Gillis still has plenty of pieces in play. The most important and valuable is centre Ryan Kesler, believed to be pursued by the Pittsburgh Penguins and Philadelphia Flyers among other teams.

Any trade Gillis makes will probably make the Canucks younger and perhaps deeper in the long run.

But the Canucks, 1-8-1 in 10 games before facing the Phoenix Coyotes Tuesday evening, look likely to miss the Stanley Cup tournament for the first time since 2008.

The Canucks’ trades involving Luongo represent the book ends on the most successful period in franchise history — a seven-year run that included six division titles, two Presidents' Trophies as the NHL's regular-season champion and a 2011 appearance in the Stanley Cup Final.

“This organization brought my game to another level,” Luongo, 34, said Tuesday, and he had the same effect on the Canucks.

He was traded to Florida for goalie prospect Jacob Markstrom and centre Shawn Mattias. But a key benefit for the Canucks is that they've shed the final eight years of Luongo's 12-year, $64-million US contract.

He returns to the Panthers, who under previous management and ownership dealt him to Vancouver in June 2006 for a package of players that included Todd Bertuzzi. Luongo is going home. He lives in the Miami area in the off-season and his wife, Gina, is from there.

But Tuesday's trade still “stunned” him, and ended a goaltending Canucks soap opera that began 23 months ago when Luongo lost his starting job to Cory Schneider.

“There was a lot of stuff that happened … but I've got nothing but good things to say towards the fans who were really supportive, especially towards the end,” Luongo told reporters as he left the Canucks' hotel here. “It did not go unnoticed, for sure. All in all, it was a great run.”

So he bears no hard feelings towards Gillis and the Canucks?

“No, it's tough for everybody,” Luongo said. “Everybody involved in this process had some tough decisions to make. I can understand that. Management had some tough choices to make and when they were made, I tried to handle them the best way I could and move forward.”

After the Canucks and Luongo agreed two years ago that he should be traded, Gillis overvalued his asset and underestimated how much the goalie's huge contract would impede a deal. Luongo's contract includes a no-trade clause, and the goalie flexed his legal rights by insisting Gillis deal with the Panthers.

So two potential trades with the Toronto Maple Leafs — likely better than the one Gillis made Tuesday — collapsed. The Canucks felt strung along by the Panthers in the summer of 2012. Luongo seemed untradeable. Needing to duck under the NHL's reduced salary cap for this season, Gillis shockingly traded Schneider at the entry draft in June.

Although the Canucks and Panthers talked off-and-on for nearly two years, Florida general manager Dale Tallon said Tuesday's trade came together quickly.

“We had some talks last year and it just didn’t come to fruition,” he said. “Yesterday afternoon we had a brief conversation with Vancouver, just making calls, kicking tires. I said 'we can revisit (Luongo).' Here we are. We are excited about it.”

To close the deal, Gillis agreed to pay about $800,000 of Luongo's annual salary, and that amount will count against the Canucks' salary cap.

“We were reluctant to do that,” Gillis admitted. “We're the same as our fans — we live this every day and we want to win. Sometimes you have to make tough decisions in order to try to move ahead. These are tough decisions. It takes a lot of courage to trade a player like Roberto Luongo and insert younger players into your lineup. We felt strongly that this was the right time frame to think that way and this was the first opportunity to act on it.”

Asked if he should have handled his two-year trade mission differently, Gillis said: “People out there want to think that we have total control over this. We signed Roberto to a long-term contract that had a no-trade in it, and he was able to exercise an element of control over how we proceeded. Unfortunately, a team he really wanted to go to … was Florida and they didn't have the wherewithal financially to take him on.

“Would we have done some things differently? Perhaps, but we didn't have complete control of the situation.”

Gillis is now trying to get control of his aging team, whose core group has gone stale. He insisted Tuesday that the Luongo trade shouldn't be interpreted as management giving up on this season while finally undertaking the “reset” Gillis promised last summer after the team's second consecutive first-round exit from the playoffs.

But while it's one thing to trade Schneider and argue the Canucks are just as good with Luongo, it's impossible to promote the idea of winning now by trading Luongo, too, and giving the No. 1 label to rookie backup Eddie Lack, who had 25 games and nine wins on his resume.

The Canucks may yet rouse themselves and make the playoffs, especially if Gillis makes an impactful trade Wednesday morning. But what amounted to a golden era for the Canucks is over.

Roberto Luongo talks to reporters in Phoenix, Ariz., on Tuesday. The Vancouver Canucks traded their star goalie back to the Florida Panthers on Tuesday, nearly eight years after he arrived on Canada's West Coast from the Sunshine State.

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